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2. Vieira Tougher Than Couric with Plame, Still Frets Over Iran War
3. CNN Sticks With Fires, FNC & MSNBC Air Medal of Honor Ceremony
4. GMA's Roberts to Laura Bush: Export Generosity, Not Bombs?
5. ABC Airs Upbeat Iraq Story on Fallujah's 'Remarkable Turnaround'
6. Dr. Tim Johnson Gushes on GMA: Hillary Knows Health Care Best
7. Now Online with 50 Flash Videos: 20th Anniversary NQ
8. Don't Miss the MRC's Video Comedy Show Making Fun of Liberals
Cafferty's loaded question in the 7pm EDT hour of The Situation Room: "When it comes to American citizens, you really have to wonder what President Bush's priorities are. Where do the citizens of this country fit into his game plan? Hundred and ninety billion for the wars, cut the heating bill budget, veto the kids' health insurance. The question is the Bush administration doesn't have enough money to help poor families pay for heat this winter, but they want $190 billion for the Iraq war. What's your reaction to that?" All of the e-mailed replies Cafferty read later in the hour agreed with his disgust toward the administration's priorities, most colorfully illustrated by Bob in California: "It's been clear since the Bush administration kidnaped the White House in 2000, they don't give a damn about ordinary Americans. Let the Katrina victims drop dead, let the 47 million uninsured Americans drop dead, let the poor in unheated homes drop dead, let the children whose government health coverage is being terminated drop dead. What's it matter to them?" [This item was posted late Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [1] ] For his numbers on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which now stands at $2.16 billion annually, Cafferty cited a Friday Reuters story, "Government money short to help poor pay heating bills," by Tom Doggett. See: news.yahoo.com [2] Fretting about a supposed lack of adequate LIHEAP funding is an old standby for the media. A couple of examples out of the MRC's archive. From the February 1993 MediaWatch: Fuel Fraud. On the December 30 [1992] CBS Evening News, John Roberts reported from Boston: "As winter sets in, parents must choose between paying for heat and paying for food." Roberts explained: "Across the country, millions of people rely on the federal government for help with their heating bills, through LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. But in recent years, that program has been cut 25 percent, while at the same time, the number of people needing assistance has increased." He also interviewed two mothers with hungry children, one of whom complained that she was running out of fuel. But where is the evidence for the so-called "heat-or-eat syndrome"? Heritage Foundation analyst Carl Horowitz called this a "false choice," citing the 26.3 million Americans who receive food stamps, not to mention Medicaid, AFDC, and housing subsidies. The Department of Health and Human Services, which administers LIHEAP, does not track the number of people needing assistance, and though spending on LIHEAP declined somewhat from 1991 to 1993 (less than the 25 percent Roberts claimed), spending steadily increased for the program from 1988 to 1991. But Roberts only had time for the liberal line: "Those lobbying for maintaining fuel funds say for every cut in the program, there is an added social cost." That's online at: www.mediaresearch.org [3] From the January 23, 2003 MRC CyberAlert, "ABC Blames Bush for Impact of 'Proposed' Spending Cut" The omnipotent President George W. Bush and OMB Director Mitch Daniels. Harking back to a Reagan era-like media focus on the victims of phantom budget cuts, ABC's Ron Claiborne on Wednesday night blamed Bush for forcing a poor elderly woman to have to choose between paying her mortgage and paying for home heating oil so she can "stay warm." But Claiborne added a twist. He claimed the four million people who get energy assistance subsidies "are receiving less money this year" because of the Bush administration's "proposed cut" in the program. So the cut is only "proposed," yet it has already gone into effect? The Bush people really are improving government efficiency! Filing a story from Boston for the January 22 World News Tonight, Claiborne noted how the cost of home heating oil has risen 23 percent since last winter. Naturally, he focused on the plight of an old woman who, Claiborne relayed, says she must use money from the mortgage payment to buy oil in order "to stay warm." Claiborne charged: "The Lees are among four million Americans on federal home energy assistance who are receiving less money this year because of the Bush administration's proposed cut of $300 million in the program. This week the Senate voted to restore the funds, but that money may not reach those who need it for weeks." I have no idea what the reality is here, but if the "cuts" occurred they are not just "proposed cuts" and if they are just "proposed cuts" then they haven't really occurred. And usually what the media describe as "cuts" really are not and are just reductions in the rate of increase. But even assuming the cuts are real and actually lowered spending in real terms, must the federal government pay for everything? Even at a lower level the recipients are still getting payments. That's online at: www.mediaresearch.org [4] And this was hardly the first time Cafferty contrasted domestic spending with money for Iraq. The August 3 CyberAlert reported: CNN's Jack Cafferty on Thursday exploited the Minneapolis bridge collapse tragedy to take a shot at the Iraq war as he proposed the money "pouring into Iraq" could be better spent "at home," and featured an e-mailer who complained spending on infrastructure is "a drop in the bucket compared to $450 billion wasted in Iraq." Cafferty's question during the 7pm EDT hour of The Situation Room: "In light of the Minnesota bridge collapse, how could the U.S. better spend the $2 billion a week that we're pouring into Iraq here at home?"
For the CyberAlert posting in full: www.mediaresearch.org [5] CNN's Jack Cafferty, in his 5pm EDT hour "Cafferty File" segment on Wednesday's The Situation Room, offered a loaded question involving President Bush's veto of a proposed expansion of the SCHIP program: "President Bush has increased the national debt by trillions of dollars. Why would he veto a bill providing health insurance for children?" Before he asked that question, Cafferty detailed how President Bush's veto of SCHIP "was cast very quietly this morning behind closed doors. No fanfare, no news coverage," and the reasons the President listed for his veto. He then added that "this is the same man who will soon go to Congress and ask for another $190 billion to continue that glorious war in Iraq." For the October 4 CyberAlert item in full: www.mediaresearch.org [6] The MRC's Brad Wilmouth checked CNN's transcript against the video to provide this rundown of the segments in the 7pm EDT hour of the October 22 Situation Room, with "LEAVING THE POOR IN THE COLD" as the on-screen header:
JACK CAFFERTY: Here's some more great news. Thirty million, 30 million of the poorest Americans will be left in the cold this winter because a government program that's supposed to help pay their heating bills doesn't have enough money. This is compassionate conservatism, boys and girls. Reuters reports that the Low Income Home Energy Assistant Program only has enough money to cover 16 percent of the 38 million households that are eligible. Its budget of about $2 billion is only $300 million more than when the program was created by the Congress 25 years ago. Yet, despite higher energy costs, the Bush administration wants to cut the program's budget. No heat for the poor people. Starting to sound familiar, isn't it? Remember a couple of weeks ago President Bush went into a closed office, shut the door, no reporters, vetoed a health bill to provide health insurance for kids. The replies, about 45 minutes later:
BLITZER: You know those stories of those heroes, this guy, Murphy in Afghanistan, you know, it's painful to have to hear that, but these are the guys who are doing the work out there, the heavy lifting.
Unlike Couric, Vieira noted how "the first source that Novak used, that revealed that you worked for the CIA was a State Department official, who had no bone to pick with your husband, a lot of people said this isn't really about retaliation from the White House." Vieira even read from a September 1, 2006 Washington Post editorial that held Plame's husband culpable: "This was an editorial, last September: 'It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue.' And it goes on to say, 'It now appears the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame as a CIA career is Mr. Wilson.'" [This item was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [8] ] An October 22 CyberAlert article, "Couric Portrays Plame as Heroic Victim of White House 'Smear,'" recounted:
Couric went so far as to suggest President Bush's personal involvement in the "smear" effort: "When all is said and done, the top aides to the President and Vice President leaked your name to reporters, do you think President Bush was in on this?" Plame replied: "I don't know about that. But I, like most other Americans, saw President Bush say on TV that he would fire anyone from his administration found to be involved in leaking my name. It turns out the President is not a man of his word."... Couric did mention Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, but failed to note he was Novak's source, preferring to spin a larger conspiracy and allow Joe Wilson to accuse the Bush team of "Mafia-like" tactics: COURIC: The special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, found evidence there were four leakers: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, President Bush's closest confidante, Karl Rove, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. All avoided the most serious charges by claiming not to know she was undercover. But Joe Wilson says that's no excuse. JOE WILSON: It was a mafia-like tactic. And the idea of going after your family, even in Washington, was an outrage. Nobody went after Karl Rove's family. Nobody went after Scooter Libby's family. They went after my family. The 60 Minutes piece, however, did include a mild challenge to Plame for enjoying some limelight as Couric also noted the "partisan" take of the couple... For the CyberAlert in full: www.mrc.org [9] The MRC's Geoffrey Dickens provided a transcript for the PLame coverage on the October 22 Today show: MEREDITH VIEIRA, 7am tease: And then Valerie Plame Wilson, she's probably the most famous spy in America since she was outed four years ago. She has finally written a book telling her side of her story. And this morning, in her first live interview, she's with us already in our studio, she's gonna talk about her years in the CIA, her experiences since then and why she believes the President of the United States betrayed her. MATT LAUER, 7:23am: Coming up in our next half-hour the most famous spy in the world. Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA operative whose cover was blown after her husband questioned the rationale for war in Iraq. Coming up her first live interview.
MEREDITH VIEIRA, 7:30am: Coming up in this half-hour the woman who launched 1000 headlines, Valerie Plame Wilson. Her career as a covert operative for the CIA came to a crashing halt in the summer of 2003, when her name was published in a high-profile newspaper column. Well it set off a political scandal and brought down Vice President Cheney's right hand man. This morning Valerie Plame Wilson tells her side of the story in her first live interview. ...
VIEIRA: First, when Valerie Plame joined the CIA more than 20 years ago she expected danger but the woman who became America's famous spy did not expect to find herself at the center of a political firestorm or exposed by her own government. NBC's John Yang looks back now at the unmasking of the woman the CIA called, "Val P."
VIEIRA: Valerie Plame Wilson's new memoir is Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Ms. Wilson, good morning to you. May I call you Valerie?
The Medal of Honor went to Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue, New York, who died in the line of duty in 2005 during operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Murphy received the first Medal of Honor awarded from Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush made the decision to give Lt. Murphy the nation's highest military honor on October 11. [This item, by Matthew Balan, was posted Monday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [10] ]
The GMA anchor first cited New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's suggestion that the U.S. "should export hope instead of fear." Roberts then regurgitated another bumper sticker slogan by mentioning a discussion with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She recounted: "Desmond Tutu went even farther, saying the generosity of Americans, that's what we should export instead of our bombs." In a follow-up interview with Middle Eastern women who survived breast cancer, Roberts awkwardly asked, "Does it help with Mrs. Bush and the United States coming here?...Or is it seen as, 'Okay, the Americans are, again, trying to force something on us?'" [This item, by Scott Whitlock, was posted Monday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [11] ] Fakhria Lufti, a resident of Abu Dhabi and cancer survivor, seemed slightly baffled by Robert's question. She retorted: "It has nothing to nothing to do with America. You know, okay, she's the First Lady, but it is cancer [sic] everywhere, not just in America, okay?" Roberts is usually somewhat less combatively liberal than some of her other GMA co-hosts, Chris Cuomo, for example. And the anchor, who herself is a cancer survivor, did mostly stick to discussing women's health issues with Laura Bush. So, perhaps these comments were simply an attempt to show token toughness during a White House trip. A transcript of the October 22 Laura Bush interview and a brief section of a second Roberts interview, follow:
7:12am, MARYSOL CASTRO: Now let's go back to Robin who is traveling with the First lady in Abu Dhabi. Robin.
8:20AM, ROBERTS: Does it help with Mrs. Bush and the United States coming here? Is it seen in a positive light? Or is it seen as, 'Okay, the Americans are, again, trying to force something on us?'
Over matching video, Marquez described how "the markets bustle. Traffic chokes the streets. Marines, once despised here, are now a welcome sight." Viewers saw video of a Marines with kids before Colonel Rich Simcook told Marquez: "This is one of my big measures of effectiveness, where, you know, kids will come up to you, you know, they feel safe to come out and play." Speaking with a Marine Sergeant, Marquez wondered: "When's the last time you were shot at these days?" The Marine replied: "I'd say, end of March." Marquez saw a corollary sign things are going well: "The last car bomb in Fallujah was in May." Though Marquez added some caveats about high unemployment and the lack of weapons for the Iraqi police, he concluded on the bright side: "There are encouraging signs. Schools just opened, and enrollment is at its highest since before the war. Construction, from huge infrastructure projects to fixing sidewalks, is everywhere. Fallujah even sports solar street lights..." [This item was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [12] ] ABCNews.com, in the World News section, has video of a shortened (about one minute) version of the Marquez story. Direct link to the abbreviated video: abcnews.go.com [13] The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the October 22 World News story: CHARLES GIBSON: In Iraq itself, we have an extraordinary comeback story tonight from the place where the Marines suffered their worst losses of the war. Fallujah is undergoing a remarkable turnaround. Tribal leaders, local officials and the U.S. Marines have united behind a common cause. Bringing security to a place that had been one of Iraq's most insecure. ABC's Miguel Marquez reports tonight from Fallujah.
Johnson may be a respected medical expert, but he's clearly a Clinton cheerleader. He has a long history of backing Bill and Hillary, as well as other liberal politicians. On Friday, the doctor casually asked Mrs. Clinton: "You have said that providing health insurance for everyone is a moral issue. Do you think the Republicans who are against it are immoral?" The ABC contributor also praised the 2008 contender for speaking "eloquently" on issues related to health care and, after noting that America has only had male presidents, sycophantically wondered, "Do you think being a female president would make any difference in leading the health care reform debate?" [This item, by Scott Whitlock, was posted Friday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [14] ] At one point in the interview, Johnson asked about the fact that the number of women getting mammograms has been dropping. He quizzed, "How can we change that, short of an edict?" Now, one could see that as a challenge of Clinton's yearning for a nanny state. But the GMA correspondent has a long history of touting Clinton government-run health care plans. An October 2003 CyberAlert noted some of his more effusive comments from the early '90s: # "So at least from the physicians represented here, you get a 100 percent vote, including mine, for universal coverage." -- ABC reporter Dr. Tim Johnson to Hillary Clinton on Good Morning America, July 19, 1994. # "I say the Clintons are almost heroes in my mind for finally facing up to the terrible problems we have with our current health care system and bringing it to the attention of the public....Most people, I think, will be better off." -- ABC Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson, September 24, 1993 20/20. For more, see the October 21, 2003 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org [15] The above comments make Johnson's statements on Friday, in which he tried to mildly criticize the Clintons, seem somewhat disingenuous. He told co-host Robin Roberts: "Back in the '90s, they met behind closed doors in the White House....And they were very rigid in their plan. They had a very detailed, bureaucratic plan that was difficult, difficult for people to understand." Finally, perhaps the biggest problem with Tim Johnson interviewing Hillary Clinton is the fact that it was touted as a hard hitting look at her health care plan. Co-host Chris Cuomo teased the segment by announcing: "People are wondering, how would your health care change if Hillary Clinton were elected President?" And yet, Johnson never once asked about taxes or how the candidate would pay for her proposals. A transcript of the segment, which aired at 7:42am on October 19: 7:31am tease, CHRIS CUOMO: All right, so here's the question: We're wondering now -- The biggest, one of the biggest domestic issues of the election is health care, right? People are wondering, how would your health care change if Hillary Clinton were elected president? Well, you're going to get your answers this morning 'cause Hillary Clinton talks to our Dr. Tim Johnson about the key issue of breast cancer and what she would do to make sure all women have access to mammograms.
7:42am, ROBIN ROBERTS: And turning now to health care and Hillary Clinton. Over the years, voters have heard a lot about this issue from the former First Lady, now Senator Clinton. And on Thursday, our medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson, had a chance to sit down with her to talk about health care.
Now Online with 50 Flash Videos: 20th Anniversary NQ. Since the MRC was founded 20 years ago, Notable Quotables has been a vital tool in our mission to document, expose and neutralize the media elite's liberal bias. The special 20th Anniversary Edition contains more than 100 of the most outrageous quotes from our past two decades, many accompanied by audio and video clips. Watch Dan Rather berate Vice President Bush during a live interview; listen to Bryant Gumbel suggest radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh bore responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombing; and recall the media's sneering disdain for Ronald Reagan, and their utter admiration for Bill and Hillary Clinton. To read the quotes and watch the videos: www.mrc.org [16] Several people at the MRC were involved in this project and deserve credit: Rich Noyes, who oversaw the project, slogged through 20 years of "Best of" issues to compile the quotes and he produced the printed issue; our DVR team of Michelle Humphrey, Kristine Lawrence and Melissa Lopez who found the videos in our archive, edited them, made still shots and rendered the flv and wmv video as well as mp3 audio; and Eric Pairel of our IT department, who created the Web page and posted the Flash video clips. For the 8-page PDF which matches the hard copy, but without any pictures or videos: www.mrc.org [17] # CLICK AND PLAY FLASH VIDEO, Plus other options: We're very excited that this production marks the MRC's first time to post "click and play" Flash video. So if you have Flash functional in your browser, as most do who use Firefox or Internet Explorer, just click on a screen shot and the video will play.
If you want to see a larger version, or prefer to download, you'll see Windows Media icons to allow you to download the wmv. Same goes for the MP3 audio clips for radio hosts or producers who wish the play the clips of their show. Yesterday, I wrote about the liberal media's softness when it came to totalitarian communism. Today's installment: The liberal media vs. Ronald Reagan and the GOP. TV reporters regularly condemned Reagan for his supposedly ruinous conservative policies, but it's still astonishing to hear then-ABC reporter Richard Threlkeld castigate the Gipper on his last day as President, January 20, 1989. The background: On January 16, 1989, an Hispanic Miami police officer shot and killed a young black man as he fled from police on a motorcycle. The incident touched off three nights of rioting that left one person dead and perhaps $1 million in property damage, according to a Washington Post report from the time. For the Inauguration Day edition of ABC's World News Tonight, Threlkeld decided to make the riots a symptom of what he claimed was Reagan's "neglect" of inner cities: "After eight years of what many saw as the Reagan Administration's benign neglect of the poor and studied indifference to civil rights, a lot of those who lived through this week in Overtown [rioting in a section of Miami] seemed to think the best thing about George Bush is that he is not Ronald Reagan," Thelkeld intoned. "There is an Overtown in every big city in America. Pockets of misery made even meaner and more desperate the past eight years." Five and a half years later, when voters finally ended 40 years of Democratic control of Congress, then-ABC anchor Peter Jennings reflected the same attitude in a November 14, 1994 radio commentary smugly chastising "angry" voters: "Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two- year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week...Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old." Some of the other quotes that show the media's disdain for Reagan and conservatism: # "The amazing thing is most people seem content to believe that almost everybody had a good time in the '80s , a real shot at the dream. But the fact is, they didn't. Did we wear blinders? Did we think the '80s left behind just the homeless? The fact is that almost nine in ten Americans actually saw their lifestyle decline." -- NBC reporter Keith Morrison, February 7, 1992 Nightly News. Census Bureau data shows median family income increased in all income classes from 1981 to 1989. # "In the plague years of the 1980s -- that low decade of denial, indifference, hostility, opportunism and idiocy -- government fiddled and medicine diddled, and the media were silent or hysterical. A gerontocratic Ronald Reagan took this [AIDS] plague less seriously than Gerald Ford had taken swine flu. After all, he didn't need the ghettos and he didn't want the gays." -- CBS's John Leonard on Sunday Morning, September 5, 1993. # "The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor." -- Dan Rather, March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News. # "When NBC Nightly News continues: In Washington, if they cut food stamps, who doesn't eat?" -- Tom Brokaw, March 22, 1995. # "Next week on ABC's World News Tonight, a series of reports about our environment which will tell you precisely what the new Congress has in mind: the most frontal assault on the environment in 25 years. Is this what the country wants?" -- Peter Jennings in an ABC promo during the July 9, 1995 This Week with David Brinkley. # "In light of the new welfare reform bill, do you think the children need more prayers than ever before?" -- Bryant Gumbel to Children's Defense Fund leader Marian Wright Edelman, September 23, 1996 Today. # CBS's Morley Safer: "You talk about a vision, and it's some kind of abstract, vague idea. Did his [Ronald Reagan's] vision include extraordinary deficits? Did his vision include cutting of the budgets for education and a back of the hand in terms of public education?" Larry King: "History will not be kind to him?" Safer: "No, I don't think history particularly will be kind....I don't think history has any reason to be kind to him." -- CNN's Larry King Live, June 14, 2004. To read the full issue, and watch any of the 50 video clips that accompany the issue: www.mrc.org [16]
Have you yet watched the MRC's "NewsBusted" comedy video show posted on our NewsBusters blog? If not, a fresh two-minute edition was posted just hours ago. "NewsBusted" is a new, twice a week, comedy show with jokes about politics, Hollywood and media bias. The idea for the show is really quite simple: Politics is absurd, so is the news. Why not have some laughs from it all? Enjoy the freshest comedy on the Web making fun of liberals and the media. You'll find the latest edition at the top of NewsBusters: www.newsbusters.org [18] For the archive of ones you've missed, as posted on YouTube in click and play Flash format: www.youtube.com [19] There are 13 episodes online to enjoy. Check out #109 for some jokes about the left-wing media attack on Rush Limbaugh. Direct address: www.youtube.com [20] -- Brent Baker
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CNN's Jack Cafferty used one of his Monday "Cafferty File" segments to denounce the Bush administration for opposing the expansion of the S-CHIP program, and now threatening to veto spending for home energy assistance, while pushing more money for Iraq. An exasperated Cafferty: "No money for kids' health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills, but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Cafferty contended "thirty million of the poorest Americans will be left in the cold this winter because a government program that's supposed to help pay their heating bills doesn't have enough money" and yet "the Bush administration wants to cut the program's budget. No heat for the poor people. Starting to sound familiar, isn't it? Remember a couple of weeks ago President Bush went into a closed office, shut the door, no reporters, vetoed a health bill to provide health insurance for kids." 
No money for kids' health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills, but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the President's new request means the cost of the Iraq war is now approaching $650 billion. I wonder if the Democrats will give him the money. They always do, don't they, despite promises to do something about the war before the midterm election. I got an e-mail from a viewer, said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a sheep in sheep's clothing. So here's the question. So here's the question: When it comes to American citizens, you really have to wonder what President Bush's priorities are. Where do the citizens of this country fit into his game plan? Hundred and ninety billion for the wars, cut the heating bill budget, veto the kids' health insurance. The question is the Bush administration doesn't have enough money to help poor families pay for heat this winter, but they want $190 billion for the Iraq war. What's your reaction to that? E-mail 
Bob in California: "It's been clear since the Bush administration kidnapped the White House in 2000, they don't give a damn about ordinary Americans. Let the Katrina victims drop dead, let the 47 million uninsured Americans drop dead, let the poor in unheated homes drop dead, let the children whose government health coverage is being terminated drop dead. What's it matter to them?" 
Meredith Vieira on Monday's Today show, like Katie Couric on Sunday's 60 Minutes, offered a sympathetic venue to Valerie Plame Wilson, but unlike Couric, her replacement pointed out how the leaker of Plame's name was not a White House operative with a vendetta against Plame's husband and quoted an editorial that contended Plame's outing was her husband's fault. Vieira began the interview by prompting Plame to explain her perception of "four-and-a-half years of character assassination." When Plame said she felt "betrayal," Vieira suggested: "By the President himself?" Vieira also invited Plame to denounce the supposed "beating of the drums" about Iran, "a lot of the rhetoric that you heard leading up to Iraq from the President and from the Vice President," and wondered: "Do you believe what happened in Iraq could possibly happen in Iran? Do you believe we are headed toward war in Iran?" 
Katie Couric's Sunday 60 Minutes interview, to promote Valerie Plame's new book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, framed the story just as the media have all along -- Painting Plame as a heroic victim of an orchestrated "smear" with little consideration to who actually gave her name to Bob Novak or the responsibility and motivation of her husband who picked a high-profile political fight with the White House.... 
VIEIRA: But when it turned out that the, the first source that Novak used, that revealed that you worked for the CIA was a State Department official, who had no bone to pick with your husband, a lot of people said this isn't really about retaliation from the White House. I want to read to you from the Washington Post. This was an editorial, last September. "It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue." And it goes on to say, "It now appears the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame as a CIA career is Mr. Wilson." 
CNN decided to not to break away Monday afternoon from its almost non-stop coverage of the California wildfires as President Bush formally awarded a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan the Medal of Honor, as its competitors Fox News and MSNBC aired the ceremony at the White House live. 
America should export generosity and hope instead of bombs and fear. Host Robin Roberts quoted these sentiments from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and columnist Thomas Friedman to Laura Bush on Monday's Good Morning America. Roberts was traveling with the First Lady through the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries as part of a tour to increase breast cancer awareness in that region. And while the ABC host mostly stuck to discussing the honorable nature of the trip, she couldn't resist a few pointed barbs. 
A rare upbeat story on Iraq ran Monday night on ABC's World News. Anchor Charles Gibson touted "an extraordinary comeback story" about Fallujah, the city of one of the war's bloodiest and longest battles, but now where reporter Miguel Marquez discovered bustling markets, Marines welcomed by kids and no car bombs or shootings of Marines in several months. Gibson effused about how "we have an extraordinary comeback story tonight from the place where the Marines suffered their worst losses of the war. Fallujah is undergoing a remarkable turnaround. Tribal leaders, local officials and the U.S. Marines have united behind a common cause. Bringing security to a place that had been one of Iraq's most insecure." 
MIGUEL MARQUEZ: The markets bustle. Traffic chokes the streets. Marines, once despised here, are now a welcome sight. 
SERGEANT CHUCK BURTON, U.S. Marines: And there was times, we were rolling through the city, you get there through sundown, you were guaranteed to either get popped on or get shot at. 
MARQUEZ: There are encouraging signs. Schools just opened, and enrollment is at its highest since before the war. Construction, from huge infrastructure projects to fixing sidewalks, is everywhere. Fallujah even sports solar street lights. It is a city in recovery, with a lot of hard work ahead. Miguel Marquez, ABC News, Fallujah. 
Hillary Clinton is smart and clearly knows health care better than any other 2008 contender. That's according to ABC's medical expert, Dr. Tim Johnson. On Friday's Good Morning America, the network contributor gushed: "She certainly knows health care better, I think, than any other candidate....I'm very impressed with her knowledge base." Johnson lauded Clinton for "offering a wide range of options" and regurgitated the candidate's use of the word choice in relation to her health care plan. He also failed to ever mention taxes or how the government would pay for universal health coverage. 
